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Burial and bomb relic sites oddly make me feel at home

Objects from the past that survive until today give me a tangible connection with old Singapore.

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Bidadari, seen in an old photo here, had 147,000 graves within its Muslim, Christian, and Hindu burial grounds.

Bidadari, seen in an old photo here, had 147,000 graves within its Muslim, Christian, and Hindu burial grounds.

PHOTO: ST FILE

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I find bomb relic and burial sites in Singapore to be an oddly comforting anchor to my country. With a lot of my time spent staring at things on a screen for work and play, I get a prickling of interest and a tingling of emotion when objects from the past like a tombstone or tool survive until today to give me a tangible connection to old Singapore.

The recent Upper Bukit Timah bomb disposal incident

reminded me that some years ago, a projectile believed to be a war relic was discovered at a construction site a few hundred metres from where I lived.

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